August 2010 As we reported recently, the adventure travel market has grown into an $89 billion industry. With that kind of money being tossed around, it is only natural for the travel options to diversify and one of the fastest growing segments of the industry is women's only travel. On these adventures, the men are left behind, and the girls get to have all the fun, as they visit remote, far flung corners of the globe on a trip of a lifetime. Read more at gadling.com.
August 2010 Most 13 year old girl’s lives revolve around school, friends and the boy that sits across from them in math class they have a crush on. Life doesn’t seem to go much further then the latest sale at the mall. Leah Petty and Claire Miller are not like most 13-year-old girls. For the past three years, the Newburyport girls have been raising money for the children of Cambodia. Read more from Blast Magazine.
August 2010 Andrea Ross lives in Cambodia six months of the year—when not in California she runs the Journeys Within B&B in Siem Reap with her husband—and can pepper Southeast Asian itineraries with philanthropic elements, enabling travelers to engage with the local community. Her favorite secret destination? Battambang, Cambodia's little-visited second-largest city, which fell under Thai rule for more than a century but today has few crowds visiting its beautiful temples. Her affordable rates make her a great option for travelers on a budget. Read more at concierge.com.
June 2010 The 15-day Culinary Immersion Tour from Journeys Within Tours visits Thailand, Laos and Cambodia with the emphasis, naturally, on sampling local cuisine. Included are cooking classes and meals with local families. Read more from the Chicago Tribune.
February 2010 Though the Exclusive Mekong Experience: Six Countries, One River journey doesn't depart until October, you may want to start planning now because it's a month long. You will visit China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, stopping to check out big cities and ethnic villages, ancient temples and pagodas and cultural performances and ceremonies. Read more from the Chicago Tribune.
December 2009 This week on Planet Good Radio, our guest is Andrea Ross, founder of Journeys Within Bed & Breakfast and Tour Company/Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC). For the last 6 years, Journeys Within B&B and Tour Company has been offering tours throughout SE Asia and is a pioneer in philanthropic travel and voluntourism, in fact being named a Conde Naste Travel World Saver because of their focus on helping their community. Listen to the Planet Good Radio episode at blogtalkradio.com.
November 2009 Welcome to Do the Right Thing on Truth.Travel, our online forum to talk about all the things responsible travel. Today we present travel specialist, entrepreneur, and philanthropic travel expert Andrea Ross of Journey's Within. Andrea will be a regular blogger for Do the Right Thing so stay tuned for more posts from Southeast Asia. Don't miss Dinda Elliott's opening post on the thinking behind Do the Right Thing. Read more at truth.travel.
June 2009 Reader Report: “My wife and I turned to Journeys Within to plan our week in Laos,” says Shell Harvey of Victoria, B.C. “Shortly after our boat tour of Kong Lor Cave on the third day, I realized I'd lost my passport. The company helped with transportation, hotels, and translating the paperwork—and didn't charge me extra. Outstanding!”
Summer 2009 After her first sojourn to Australia at age 7, the founder of Journeys Within Tour Company and B&B never looked back. Today, Ross and her husband offer trips to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Below, a few of this seasoned globe-trotter's favorite things. Read more at girlgetaways.com.
August 2009 - Top Travel Specialist: Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand
Andrea Ross lives in Cambodia six months of the year—when not in California, she runs the Journeys Within B&B in Siem Reap with her husband—and can pepper Southeast Asian itineraries with philanthropic elements, enabling travelers to give back to the local community. Her favorite secret destination? Battambang, Cambodia's little-visited second-largest city, which fell under Thai rule for more than a century but today has few crowds visiting its beautiful temples. Her affordable rates make her a great option for travelers on a budget. Read more at concierge.com.
August 2009 Andrea Ross is one of those rare individuals who experienced an epiphany, gave up corporate work, and took a great risk in establishing her two businesses, Nikaya Handcrafted and Journeys Within Inc. Based in Cambodia, her companies are devoted to raising awareness of the needs of Southeast Asians and to alleviate poverty and improve health conditions in Southeast Asia. Read more at capitalistchicks.com.
April 2009 Gerry & Judy Laird, voluntourists, Joanne Majewski, Alternative Breaks Coordinator for the Center for Service and Action at Loyola Marymount University, and Andrea Ross, Founder of Journeys Within Tour Company (JWTC) and Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC), will join David Clemmons to discuss the following: 1) How has JWOC integrated the tourism knowledge of JWTC with service to the local community? 2) When considering voluntourists' needs in juxtaposition to the needs of communities, how has JWOC been able to maintain a balanced perspective? 3) As voluntourists (Gerry & Judy) and past voluntourists (Joanne), what advice and constructive feedback are you providing and have you provided to JWOC before, during, and/or after your trip? Listen at talkshoe.com.
April 2009 Customized travel itinerary – check! Luxury amenities – check! Historic locale and giving back to the community – check, check!
Sometimes the best things in life are unplanned. Andrea Ross and her husband, Brandon, set out touring Southeast Asia with no intentions of visiting Cambodia....
Along the way, they heard some many wonderful things from travelers about Cambodia, they booked their trip and fell in love with the “hope and excitement” Cambodians have for their country. Read more at gogalavanting.com.
ABC News Money Matters
November 2008 See Andrea and Narla discuss Journeys Within, JWOC and the potential of philanthropic travel live on ABC News Money Matters.
September 2008 The 38 companies celebrated on these pages are turning the travel industry's enormous potential to improve the planet into reality. Travel worldwide will generate $8 trillion in revenue this year, and these, our annual World Savers Awards, are one indication of how the industry is measuring up to that opportunity. The trend is striking: We received applications from 142 companies this year—a record during the 14 years of the awards, and a twofold increase over 2007.
The 17 judges—academics, activists, CEOs, and philanthropists (see page Jeffrey Sachs)—looked at five areas: poverty alleviation; cultural and environmental preservation; education; wildlife conservation; and health. But the process of arbitrating the awards belies the human drama of the achievements themselves. From building schools and furnishing much-needed medical supplies to restocking wildlife reserves and dispensing micro-loans, these World Savers are models for their peers—each story an inspiration for others to follow. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, here's hoping that this year's winners are flattered by every other airline, cruise line, hotel, and tour operator on earth.
WINNER IN HEALTH
Tour Operator: Journeys Within Our Community
When Andrea and Brandon Ross moved to Cambodia in 2003 to start a tour company and a bed-and-breakfast, they discovered that nearly two-thirds of the population lacked access to clean water, contributing to serious health problems. Little by little, the Rosses are changing that. They launched Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC), a nonprofit that offers scholarships for university students, holds free English classes, provides micro-loans for small businesses, and builds village water wells. Puzzled by the recent fad of Americans doing construction work on volunteer vacations, JWOC instead hires locals, helping to solve unemployment problems, as well. "You don't use someone with a Harvard degree to build a well," says Brandon. So far, JWOC has added more than 180 wells to the landscape around Siem Reap, helping nearly 4,000 Cambodians to escape water-related disease. Travel tip: For $300, you can pay for the construction of a well that will supply about 20 people with water and then visit the families and communities it benefits.
HONORABLE MENTION IN POVERTY ALLEVIATION
Tour Operator: Journeys Within Our Community
Journeys Within Our Community runs a Village Microfinance Fund with profits from its tour business and guest contributions. Once a recipient has paid back the original loan (beginning at $100) and interest, he or she can take out another, larger loan.
HONORABLE MENTION IN PRESERVATION
(ENVIRONMENT/CULTURE)
Tour Operator: Journeys Within Our Community
This Southeast Asia company builds cultural experiences into all of its trips—visiting a Khmer dance class in Cambodia, a rice paper producer in Laos, or a weaving village in Vietnam.
August 2008 Over the past nine years, as online travel-planning tools have gotten better, our standards for the travel specialists on this list have gotten higher. To earn a spot, after all, you must be able to do for travelers what they cannot do for themselves. The travel planners on the following pages all have on-the-ground experience that is both extensive and recent — making their advice more timely than what you'll find on a lot of Web sites — and also have insider connections and special access that no site can duplicate....
Cambodia: Andrea Ross, Journeys Within Tour Company, Truckee, California
Ross lives in Cambodia six months of the year — when not in California, she runs the Journeys Within B&B in Siem Reap with her husband — and can pepper Southeast Asian itineraries with philanthropic elements, enabling travelers to give back to the local community. Her favorite secret destination? Battambang, Cambodia's little-visited second-largest city, which fell under Thai rule for more than a century but today has few crowds visiting its beautiful temples. Her affordable rates make her a great option for travelers on a budget (877-454-3672; andrea@journeys-within.com; $200).
July 2008 Remember the devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar (also known as Burma) back in May? Just vaguely, right? While the news media quickly moved on to cover the riots in Tibet and the Democratic primaries, those in Myanmar are still trying to pick up the pieces, with little help from their ruling junta. More than 138,000 people are listed as dead or missing. The tourist season is approaching, and a drop in visitors could devastate the country's already battered economy.
That's where you can help: Consider planning a trip to Myanmar through Journeys Within. This tour operator has just announced that, from December 2008 to December 2009, it will funnel much of its profits from Myanmar itineraries to that country's relief efforts. Specifically, Journeys Within will donate ALL of the profits from the first ten trips that it plans to Myanmar, and half of the profits from the rest of the trips during the year. Journeys Within owner Andrea Ross told me, "Most of the country has not suffered any damage but is now struggling because the tourism industry has essentially collapsed. Guides, drivers, and hotel staff are all facing uncertain futures." I can personally vouch for the high quality of Journeys Within's tours: I traveled to Cambodia with them last December, and wrote an article about my voluntourism experience that appeared in Conde Nast Traveler's May issue.
The company's nonprofit arm, Journeys Within Our Community, has already been instrumental in Cyclone Nargis relief efforts. Director Jesse Wolfe was among the first aid workers let into Myanmar after the disaster, and you can read his assessment of the situation on JWOC's Web page.
You can also read a paean to Myanmar that was published in Conde Nast Traveler before the cyclone hit, and check out the suggested itineraries from Journeys Within.
May 2008 You don’t have to wear a shirt to do good. Brook Wilkinson goes luxe in Southeast Asia and figures out how to give back, too.
You took the helicopter ride around the temples of Angkor Wat? How much does that cost?” the monk asked, his eyes showing an incomprehension that his shaved eyebrows could not. Appearing daily in his saffron robes, he was a standout student in the advanced English class that I was helping to teach. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” I replied, staring ashamedly at the wooden desk in front of me. Over the course of my thirty-minute joyride, I realized I’d doled out more than many Cambodians earn in a year.
I had come to Cambodia on a luxury volunteer vacation arranged through Journeys Within, a tour operator run by an American couple based in Siem Reap. I’d be spending about half of my time – as most visitors to Cambodia do – exploring Phnom Penh and the cultural relics of Angkor Wat, staying at high-end hotels and touring with private guides. On the other days, I’d be volunteering with the tour operator’s nonprofit Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC). At best, I hoped to alleviate some of the guilt that comes with being a moneyed traveler in the developing world. Read more…
March/April 2008 The Mission: Brandon and Andrea Ross’ boutique Southeast Asia tour company Journeys Within strives to give guests authentic experiences in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
The couple also formed the nonprofit Journeys Within Our Community orgazination to spearhead such projects as: microfinance fund that has loanded over $17,000 to give the poor an opportunity to start or expand a business; a water project that creates wells to provide a safe, dependable water source year round; the Killing Fields Pagoda language school that offers classes in Thai, Japanese, Korean and English; the Dollars for Scholars Fund that gives students university scholarships; and the Than Xuan Peace Village shelter that helps victims from the Vietnam War, To really make a difference, join them on a giving tour of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam while enjoying some of the region;s finest accomodations and experiences, as outlined below. Read more…
February 2008 Whether through volunteering or making donations, find ways to make a difference as you travel. An inside look at how to change lives in the places you visit.
December 2007 You can delve deeper into an unfamiliar culture when you're able to gain access to places, events, and people that are normally off-limits. Below are 40 examples of such extraordinary experiences worldwide, ranging in price from $80 to $12,000. Because of their nature, these opportunities are subject to change and even cancellation. Not all are available every day, some only in limited quantities, and most cannot be booked à la carte but only as part of a larger itinerary. This list is not exhaustive, either: The very act of publicizing some rare experiences offered by the most well-connected travel firms would burn the bridges that make them possible. (Prices quoted are estimates for two people and include just the elements listed.)
Thailand
Elephant Whisperer
Philanthropy, Wildlife
Meet with Sangduen Chailert, known as Lek, who founded the Elephant Nature Park near Chiang Mai and was named one of Time Asia's Heroes of 2005. You'll go with Lek to market to buy the day's food for her more than 30 rescued elephants (some victims of land mines, others saved from logging duties), have lunch, and help bathe the animals in a nearby river. Time your trip to coincide with the dry season (October through March). Cost: $1,000, including a donation. Source: Andrea Ross, Journeys Within, Rancho Santa Margarita, California (877-454-3672 ; andrea@journeys–within.com; journeys-within.com).
Vietnam
Make Friends, Not War
History
Go on a private tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels with a war veteran who spent time inside them—having once fought against Americans, Mr. Nam now welcomes them to his country. Beneath Cu Chi village, Vietcong soldiers hid in the narrow passageways, which also served as a food and weapons warehouse, a communications network, and the base of operations for the 1968 Tet Offensive. After crawling around the tunnels, you'll head back to Mr. Nam's home for dinner with his family. Cost: $500. Source: Andrea Ross (see the preceding).
August 2007 Unrivaled access, special connections, destination savvy—these are just some of the tools each of these über-agents can deploy to bring the most to your next big trip. In parsing the day-to-day events of an actual itinerary, Consumer News Editor Wendy Perrin demonstrates how the intuitive maneuvers of a great travel planner can turn any journey into a smoothly orchestrated, magical experience…
Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam:
Andrea Ross, Journeys Within, Rancho Santa Margarita, California
Ross and her husband run a B&B in Siem Reap, and they've personally trained every guide they use. Pioneers in travelers' philanthropy, the couple encourage guests to sponsor a well or spend an afternoon teaching English (877-454-3672; andrea@journeys-within.com; journeys-within.com).
September 2005 This once-in-a-lifetime trip is so special – and such a good value – we’d be remiss if we didn’t tell you about it. We first introduced Brandon and Andrea Ross in 40 Best last September, a year after they’d sold their home in California and moved to Cambodia.
The Rosses run a charming B&B in Siem Reap, near Angkor Wat (the inn has become so popular they’ve added new suites and a swimming pool), and they offer private guided tours of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Read more…
October 2005 Journeys Within Our Community’s projects include the school, a clean water project, and an effort to help advanced students get higher levels of education. The Rosses also facilitate volunteer work in Cambodia by tourists.
“Our guests that have participated have loved it and the projects, especially the school, have benefited so much from the Western input, Brandon said. Read more…
June 2005 Within sight of ruins nearly 1,000 years old, the little Journeys Within B&B and Tour Company is celebrating its first year in business in Cambodia. Founded by American ex-pat husband/wife partners Brandon and Andrea Ross, the Siem Reap-based business hosts travelers visiting the famous Buddhist shrine of Angkor Wat and guides them on personalized tours of Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma) and this fall, along the mighty Mekong River from China to Vietnam. Read more…
November 2005 ....Delightfully furnished individual suites each with a bathroom, how water, air-conditioning and balcony. Definitely a 5-star rating. Read more…
September 2004 Their company, Journeys Within, is the first of its kind in Cambodia to be owned and operated by Americans. Because she and Brandon live in Siem Reap, Andrea says travelers feel a level of service and security they can’t get from companies based in the U.S., half a world away. All of the local guides are handpicked, and the Rosses will handle everything from restaurant recommendations to lost passports. Read more…
July 2004 ....From their insider perch, they create tour packages and independent itineraries for Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. They live and work from their three-bedroom B&B, which is about 10 minutes from the entrance of the Angkor Wat complex. Read more…
July 2004 Brandon Ross has done what most Park City High School students only dream of: he’s opened a small bed and breakfast in Cambodia. The 25-year-old runs Journeys Within with his wife, Andrea, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Their business is a five-room bed and breakfast, plus tour service for their patrons. Read more…
August 2004 Donna McAleer is adopting an orphanage in Cambodia, and she wants the rest of Park City to help. A former director of the People’s Health Clinic and new mother, McAleer plans to send school supplies to the Killing Field Pagoda School. She visited the small orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia, while on vacation there two years ago. Read more…
June 2004 One of the newer lodging options is Journeys Within Bed & Breakfast, which opened in January on the outskirts of Siem Reap. Owners Andrea and Brandon Ross say they were inspired by their first visit to Cambodia in 2002 to create both the three-bedroom inn, which blends Western comforts and Cambodian design, and a “boutique tourism” company that focuses on Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Read more…
